We are going to be seen as a soft touch on transfers for a while unfortunately, and although we've clearly struggled to off-load players, it can't always be Marwood's fault.
For me, Marwood has a very difficult job. Take Kolarov as an example. A purely Mancini signing, but for many people too slow to play as an orthodox left back in England. If Marwood hadn't backed the signing, he'd be viewed as undermining Mancini. But if Kolarov is now sold before the end of this month, and at a big loss (10m?) on what we paid for him, it would reflect badly on Marwood. Also, Mancini didn't exactly boost Adebayor's re-sale value by stating that he had no chance of ever playing for the club again. I'm not having a go at Mancini, far from it, but it's easy to see how tensions can arise between him and Marwood.
However, I do have two real issues around our dealings in this transfer window.
The first one is the most obvious - the lack of a centre-half being added to the squad. We will hopefully sign someone in the next week, but this should have been a priority and we should have had a deal done by now.
The second one relates to Adam Johnson - if the papers are even half right on this, there are around five clubs interested in signing him, but the best price we can hope to achieve is 10m, just more than we paid for him when he was an uncapped, unproven player from the championship. If the tables were turned and we were one of five clubs interested in this player, we'd probably end up paying around 16 or 18m for him. Trying to sell Wayne Bridge is one thing, but the price we get for Johnson - a genuinely marketable asset - should give us a good indication of Marwood's abilities.
Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if Marwood goes before next summer. We have a new CEO, and I'm amazed at how little attention this has received. It's being kept low key for a reason - possibly to avoid creating another Garry Cook situation, but also to allow the new man to look at the club, it's structure and personnel.
There have been strong rumours about City appointing this CEO and also the former football director from Barcelona (can't remember/spell his name). If it's a done deal that we do appoint this director, and given the tensions with Mancini,then Marwood is obviously toast. But why not leave him in charge for another transfer window to clear-up the mess left by Hughes (and himself) before appointing the new guy? Slightly machiavellian, but this would be my bet.
